Dave Chappelle’s Trans Faux Pas
I’m going in on Dave Chapelle, y’all — for realz!
This is not a pre-drafted post. I don’t have that much time to give something so obviously whack. I’m gonna keep this short, and apologies if anything I say is triggering. Also, there’s gonna be typos.
Recently, in a comedy special, Dave Chapelle brought up J.K. Rowling (of Harry Potter fame) for her broad claim that gender is real. That seems like a no-brainer until you consider the underlying assumptions it espouses. Yes, gender is real. What Rowling is implying is that gender is fixed. She is making a non-scientific claim that there are two choices: man or women. Regardless of all of the scientific evidence and support of it in the natural world around us every day, J. K. holds firm in her miseducation. I guess for her, if you have a dick, you’re a man, and if you don’t you’re the other thing.
That’s just some plain old dumb assery. For the people who haven’t been privileged with an education that explains the distinctions between biological sex (which is fraught with its own set of fallacies), gender (which gets assigned to everything—trees, seasons, the sky, water—not just people), and sexual orientation (which is just about who gets your blood racing). I blame some of the confusion on the fact that academics have made it so complicated to understand something so simple, that people are afraid to begin.
Let’s look at race. Biologically people are born into a particular phenotype. That’s all the physical shit we use to identify people, even though we know that has nothing to do with anything other than what we see with our eyes, some people mistake that for race. Then there’s culture. Culture is all the ways people might behave because of where they were born (environment), how they are raised (indoctrination) and the expectations thrust on them (societal norms, laws, stereotypes and shit). Individuality is the choice made (or the natural drive) to be and behave in ways in spite of what’s been pre-determined by any of those things. This is not a point for point parallel, but we can accept that biology is minimal when it comes to personality and identity.
If we can separate the biology of phenotype from a person’s culture and individuality, why can’t we offer the same rationale to sex, gender and orientation? Rowling doesn’t want to do that work and so she makes a comment that she believes let’s her off the hook by appealing to the bias and ignorance of others, who will smile, nod and confirm her ignorance. The Alt-Right did the same thing when they forwarded their idea that race is real. Only the ignorant and those predisposed to White supremacist beliefs bought that shit. So, when Dave Chapelle stopped the show for serious reflection (it was a stop the music moment if ever there was one) to say “It’s true, gender is real” he was not only spreading a message of ignorance to the millions that watched the special (or at best generating insecurity for people more open to question) that they are right to stay ignorant and that all the people who are living their lives (and expressing gender) based on lived experience and aspirations are wrong. Hm. That’s a bold statement and one that holds little water. Mr. Chapelle, just cause you co-signed some bullshit, doesn’t make it not bullshit.
Thanks J. K. And Dave and all you others out there taking a stand for ignorance. It’s so courageous of you to use your huge platforms to talk out of your assholes. We who are apparently doing gender all wrong will try and keep it our own fucking business so as not to bother either of you. Perhaps you might try doing a bit of the same.
